


Curls, Kinks, and Coils

by Mirabai0821



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Fluff, Hair Kink, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4036456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirabai0821/pseuds/Mirabai0821
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Dragon Age Kink Meme: </p><p>During War Table banter Cullen admits to styling his hair. Why did he start straightening his curls? Was he embarrassed? Did he associate his curls with the Templar Order and gave himself a makeover when he left? Did his fellow Templars tease him?</p><p>I would love to see an insecure-about-his-hair Cullen falling for a curly-haired Inquisitor who loves her wild, glorious curls and him learning to love (or at least accept) his own. Smut, crack, fluff, it's all good.</p><p>Bonus:<br/>+ f!Trevelyan<br/>+ Inquisitor styling Cullen's hair for him<br/>+ Vivienne giving styling tips to Cullen, Inquisitor or both<br/>+ Cullen fantasizing about playing with Quizzy's hair<br/>+ Inquisitor gives Cullen a scalp massage while conditioning his hair and he gets off on it<br/>+ random soldier/visiting noble makes a snide comment about his curly hair, but Quizzy reassures him (sexily)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shea Butter

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt was literally made for me

She always kept her hair in braids. 

Not braids per se, he guessed that's what they were but they were braided thick and flat against her scalp making her head look like the furrowed rows of tilled soil. Thick black hair that contrasted nicely with the rich dark earthiness of her skin.

Maker's breath, he sighed in wonder, she was just so beautiful.

He could barely, _barely_ keep himself under control when she was around him, stammering and simpering like a child whenever she prodded him with questions about his interests or his former life as a templar when all he wanted to do was grab hold of her and kiss her until all her questions were answered. It was driving him to distraction really, so much so that he clutched the trival reports to his chest, his balled fist hovering over the door to her quarters knowing that she'd see right through this flimsy excuse just to be near.

To the Void with it.

He knocked.

“Enter.” 

He took several deep steadying breaths as he climbed the stairs before she simply knocked the air right out of his chest.

If he could describe it, it looked like she'd been shocked with a healthy dose of electricity. Her hair stood several inches up and off and away from her head a messy halo of tightly wound black springy curls that reached down to brush the top of her shoulders.

“Ah, Commander. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Her curls shivered and shook with her every word and Cullen was unable to focus on anything but the way they bounced. The looked soft, wonderfully soft like cotton or clouds or...he sighed deeply completely unaware that she was still standing there, her question hanging in the air awkwardly.

“Commander?”

He snapped to with a jerk, spilling the reports (some of them completely fabricated) all over her floor.

“Ahh... I'm sorry.”

He bent forward to pick them up and she, as a testament to her sweetness, knelt to help him.

When she drew close he drew a deep breath and nearly moaned. She smelled sweet, like vanilla cake but he couldn't quite place...

“It's shea butter Commander.”

“Ah...huh? What? What is?” 

“You're probably wondering what that sweet smell is, it's shea butter. It keeps my hair soft.”

So it was soft, holy Maker what he wouldn't give to test that statement himself.

“Its...your hair that is...I've never seen...”

“Of course not, it wouldn't do to be out in the field like this where an errant spark could light the whole thing on fire. But I'm home now, it needn't be protected here. Were these for me?”

She asked him with a spark of life shimmering in dark brown eyes.

“Oh, yes, I was hoping to go over...”

She held up a report with a curious look on her face “The Mating Habits of Nugs?”

Cullen quickly snatched that report from her hands and tucked it into his breastplate. That was the _last_ time he'd ever ask Dorian for help concerning her.

“N..no...,” he blushed deeply, collected the rest of his papers before making ready to flee.

“Commander, if you wanted to just talk to me, you don't have to come up with excuses. I thought we were friends.”

Lady Trevelyan pulled her umber lips into a playful pout and Cullen's knees nearly gave out.

“We... we are...friends I mean. We're friends.”

She gestured for him to sit on her chaise while she took up a seat on the opposite end. She drew her knees up to her chest and stared at him expectantly, smiling brightly the entire time.

Cullen _still_ hadn't managed to take a full breath.

“So, as friends, what would you like to talk about?”

Don't mention her hair. Don't mention her hair. Don't talk about it, don't think about it. Do NOT imagine burying your hands in her hair to the scalp and just....wriggling them around and...

His mouth mumbled something before his mind could catch up and stop him. 

He really needed to get a better grip on his brain/mouth control.

“What was that? What about Haven?”

“You...I never saw your hair like this at Haven.”

“Oh, I kept it cornrows then.”

“Why?”

She twirled an impossibly tight curl even tighter around one of her fingers.

“I was embarrassed.”

“I can't imagine you embarrassed, Inquisitor.”

It's true, he couldn't. Ever since she stepped out of the breach she was just this unstoppable force of nature. If she couldn't win you over with her disarming ladylike sweetness, then she merely toppled you over. Impressive for a Circle mage, who—in Cullen's experience, tended toward either cowering timidity or out and out rage filled rashness.

“My mother, before I left for the Circle used to fix my hair with a hot metal comb. I had to sit between her legs as she dragged it through my hair, pinching my ears down lest they get burned. No matter what I did, they still got burned though. The result was perfectly bone straight hair just like yours.”

The Inquisitor reached for Cullen, her fingers poised just above his pale blonde waves. “May I?” She asked shyly.

The Commander didn't trust himself to speak so he nodded, swallowing thickly.

She ran her fingers through his hair, fingertips just ghosting over his scalp. 

Cullen about died.

“My mother said straight hair made me prettier, that no one would like me if I let my hair grow the way it does.”

“It grows like that?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“But then I left for the Circle and no one could fix my hair for me anymore so it got wild like this. I was teased for it. They called me 'wool head' and made bleating noises like sheep whenever I passed. I was...different at my Circle.”

“How so?”

“I was the only one who looked like me.”

“Like...you...oh....Oh!” The candle flickered in Cullen's head. “You mean the only noble.”

The Inquisitor tilted her head back and laughed deeply, her coils shaking with ever belly aching laugh. Andraste preserve, he could die in the sound of her laugh. 

“No, straw head.”

She grabbed his pale hand, lifted it between them then threaded her dark fingers in his light ones. Together they looked like the keys of a piano, white then black then white again.

“Different like this.”

“Oh.”

He never thought about that, never crossed his mind.

And why would it?

He couldn't even think of it now with their hands pressed together like this, he could only focus on how _wonderful_ it felt to hold her hand like this.

“I braided my hair up so they'd leave me alone. They didn't, but at least _I_ felt better about it. Then the world almost ended, I became the Herald of Andraste and suddenly all eyes were on me again. I kept my hair braided up because...well...I didn't want anyone to make bleating noises about the Herald of Andraste.”

“If they did, I would have handled it, _personally_.”

“Oh?” She laughed, a blush did not rise in her cheeks but the tell-tale heat was there. “Where were you when I was 16 and self-conscious?”

Waiting for you, he thought.

But then he realized with growing yawning terror that he said that out-loud. “Maker's breath...I...”

Before he could recant his thought, Lady Trevelyan crossed the ocean-like distance of one edge of the chaise to the other and smothered him in a kiss.

Her hands fisted in his cloak, holding him still with a surprisingly strong grip—staff wielding and all that.

Cullen's eyes slipped close and while he neither fought nor fell into the kiss, he relaxed.

Then he kissed her back.

She felt soft and strong. Sweet and spicy. All the best things in the world and....all the best things in the world.

Realization flooded him, she was close now, all he had to do was reach and he could feel with his own hand how wonderful her hair felt.

He reached...but with a sweet, knee-gelling smack she pulled away from him, lips dark and bruised and wet.

She felt his groan ripple through her gut when she pulled away.

“Should I... should I not have done that?”

“Do that whenever you...mmmph!”

Lady Trevelyan needn't be told twice.


	2. Tenderheaded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just an updating fool today.

“Inquisitor?”

She invited him to her quarters for dinner. Yet when he arrived, her room was empty save for the impossibly large tub that could accommodate most species of druffalo.

She must have just finished her bath. He thought.

Incorrectly.

The Inquisitor broke the surface of the water with a childish, gleeful giggle completely unaware that the sanctity of her bathtime had been violated (or perhaps enhanced) by the presence of her lover. 

“Andraste wept.” He whispered.

The Maker's Bride had to weep because She could not hope to compare to the vision before him. The water chased sinful trails down from her neck, across her shoulders and collarbone, deep down into the valley of her breasts and the peaks of her raisin colored nipples. Cullen seized, rooted in place by fear and arousal. They'd kissed... a lot...could not get enough kissing in their fledgling relationship. And they did manage to sneak in an appreciative squeeze or two...or several. But he had not yet seen her naked and definitely had never seen her naked and _wet_. 

However, despite all her naked glory, and Andraste preserve him it was _glorious_ , that wasn't even the best part. 

Her. 

Hair.

It clung to her face, curls coiling tendrils around her eyes and cheeks and down the wide flare of her nose making them look like the intricate vallasin of an elf. Drops of water spiraled around her tightly wound kinks, catching the twilight sun and the embers of a roaring fire, her black hair glowing against brown skin. She was beautiful, there were no words adequate enough save that one.

Cullen felt liquid fire flood him, filling him with a desperate warmth.

Warmth that turned ice cold when the Inquisitor wiped the hair and water out of her eyes to find she was not alone.

“Cullen?”

“I...Maker's breath...I'm...”

“Oh good, you're here.”

Mischief and desire glowed hot in her whiskey colored eyes as she reclined in her bath beckoning him forward with a curl of her arm.

“Join me?” she did not purr her request, she kept it clear and chaste offering him a way out should such activities prove just a little too much for him too soon. But before the inflection of the question could rise in her voice, Cullen had shucked off most of clothes and struggled desperately with his boots.

Her eager templar slid into the water, sighing in the languid heat of the bath.

“Is it too hot for you?”

“No it’s perfect,” he mumbled. Cullen let his eyes slip closed for but a moment, trying to get a reign on his galloping heart. Something he found incredibly difficult to do given the way he felt her eyes on him, raking over him, eating him alive. 

“Am I making you nervous?”

Lie. Lie damn you. Tell her everything’s fine and you aren’t some teen-aged Chantry boy about to crawl out of your skin because the most beautiful woman on the Maker’s green earth is sitting _naked_ and _wet_ mere inches from you.

His exasperated exhale answered the question for him.

Evelyn made a sympathetic noise in her throat that sounded a bit too much like annoyed pity to him. Before he could excuse himself from the tub for making an utter fool out of himself, she glided in the water, bringing close to him her _naked, wet, warmth_. 

“Scoot up please.” She commanded gently.

Weighed down by want and rooted in place by anxiety, Cullen could only obey, shifting forward in the water giving her the space to crawl behind him.

“Now lie back.”

Cullen gulped.

“You needn’t do anything you don’t wish to, simply say.” 

“I…I want to be here.”

“Are you sure, love?”

In answer, Cullen tipped backward, bringing his naked well-muscled back against her chest, feeling her breasts press into his shoulder blades. Cullen hissed sharply, lighting tipped desire coursing through him, spearing him in the gut and the groin.

She felt him stiffen, muscles locking up until he was one solid being of clenched flesh. She hadn’t meant to put him so out of sorts, only meaning to share some time with him in a lazy, relaxing bath. But her poor templar could hardly breathe, drawing in heavy tremulous breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“How about this. Let me wash your hair.”

“Eh?” Cullen stuttered, unable to find words.

“I like your hair, allow me the pleasure of washing it. Please.” She carded a hand through the spun gold of his hair, delighting in its softness, the silky texture gliding easy through her fingers.

Still shaky with his words, Cullen nodded.

Evelyn made a small noise of approval and joy before cupping her hands full of water and sluicing it over his head. His hair flattened, running down the curve of his scalp with the water.

Cullen tensed again at the water washing over him before trying and failing yet again to force himself to relax. He grumbled, annoyed with his body that seemed to flinch whenever she moved behind him adjusting her legs so that they lay open against his that were bent at the knee. He sat in her lap, nakedness pressed nearly flush against her.

“I’m sor…”

“Shh,” she cooed, planting an open mouthed kiss on the cord of muscle that connected shoulder to neck. “When I was younger, I used to dread getting my hair washed.”

The Inquisitor reached for the soap that smelled of vanilla cake, shea butter he remembered.

“It was a big affair, I had so many sisters and we each had to wait our turn for Mama and Granny to fix our hair.”

She lathered the soap, filling the space between them with its rich scent. Satisfied with the foam, she dolloped it on his head.

“Some of my sisters, my older ones, had been through the ordeal for so long, so many times they had almost no hair left. They didn’t take so long. Are you tender-headed, Cullen?”

“Am I what?”

Evelyn giggled. “Is your scalp sensitive?”

“Oh, I …I don’t know.”

“I’ll start softly and let me know if I can go harder.”

Cullen’s knee slipped and fell into the water with a thunderous splash.

“Maker’s breath, I’m really…”

She cut him off with more amused, mirthful sounding giggles and reassured him by planting another kiss just below his earlobe. That shut him up entirely.

“My poor sisters were tender-headed and Mama and Granny were always so rough.”

Evelyn placed the pads of her fingers one by one against his scalp until all ten of them were pressed against his head. She moved them slowly, careful not to aggravate him should he be one of the sensitive ones. 

He tensed at the contact, but as she moved, working the soap into his hair and down into his scalp, that tension fled him like water down a drain. Before he could stop it, a contented hum rippled through him, vibrating his chest, vibrating against her.

“Is that good?” she asked.

“Yes,” he hissed the last syllable, drawing it out, pulsing it with the flexing of her fingers until it sounded like a snake.

Pleased, she kissed him again on the throat, lips hovering over his pulse that still beat a little on the anxious side but cooling with every scrape.

“They washed us, conditioned us, dried us, straightened us, then styled us. It took all day.”

She chased her fingers up and down his skull, forgoing the use of her nails in favor of light pressure with the pads of her fingertips. His hair was not as thick as hers and didn’t require the use of nails to penetrate thick roots to the scalp below. 

Cullen tipped back father to rest fully flush against her. He relaxed in earnest now, moaning, tilting his head backwards like he wanted to fall asleep, his face now completely devoid of its previous trepidation.

“That feels amazing. Don’t stop.” He mumbled, legs sliding down into the water.

She played in his hair a bit, making shapes in it with the soap. She teased it into mohawks, or flattened it to see how far down it’d lay, finding his golden hair stopped at the topmost ridge of his spine. She planted a kiss there and watched it grow into another contented sigh.

His lover traced circles in his scalp, winding from his temples to the nape of his neck, to the crown of his skull and back again. Delightful little vibrations thrummed through him, chasing down his spine and flooding all his extremities with little tingles.

Cullen gasped. He felt himself thicken and harden under the water. She hadn’t quite rinsed the soap off him yet so the water was still clear, his erection very obvious even under the water-line.

“I…I uh.”

“Are you enjoying yourself?” She asked. Now she chose to bust out the purr.

“Yes.” He answered, feeling himself twitch when her breath blew over the shell of his ear.

“Good. I’m going to rinse you off now.”

She cupped water over his head again, this time rinsing him down with water and sudsy kisses laid to his temples, earlobes, and the line where his stubble met bare skin.

“Evelyn,” he moaned, manhood twitching, hardening.

Rinsed clean of the soap, she pressed against him, one arm wrapping around his broad chest, the other leaving light scratches against his torso. “Cullen, do you trust me? Do you trust my magic?” She asked, whispering.

She relaxed him, drained him of his tension and anxiety and left him feeling the most eased and aroused he’d ever been in life. He was putty in her hands. 

He wanted to be.

“Yes.”

She lifted her arm pressing her fingertips just under his chin and tilted him up, dark lips pressing against the open column of his throat, teeth grazing the skin just so.

“Let..let me.” Cullen tried to twist around between her legs but she held him fast shushing him.

“Shh sweet one. Let _me_.”

Her hands, all ten fingers again, pushed up slowly from the back of his neck and into his hair. She massaged him again and he felt…

A loud moan thundered in his throat.

He felt heat. Tingly, spicy, heat radiated from her fingertips and into his skin as she drew doodles in his hair. The sensation lit every last vein, artery, and capillary on fire and his body sang under her touch.

“M..Maker!”

His cock jumped, dangerously hard now and he wanted nothing more than to…

“Touch yourself, Cullen. Let me see you. Please.”

If his Lord Maker came for him now, Cullen would demand that the bastard wait. 

She watched a trembling hand reach down and grasp the thick heat of himself underwater and her mouth dried up when she saw his fist squeeze. She let loose her own little moan that tingled in her nipples and down in her cunt, but this wasn’t for her and those needs would be addressed at a later time if at all.

Her hands worked him, playing with varying intensities of heat and spice. It actually felt like she was rubbing hot peppers into his scalp and when the cool breezes from the open window hit him, gooseflesh erupted across his body, his cock jumping madly in his grip. He cursed, bit his lip, and gripped himself harder, the sensations maddening him.

“Go slower, love.” She corrected and he obeyed. “Does this feel, good?” She curled her fingers around his ears, this time leaving trails of frost. He swore again, chewing his bottom lip so he wouldn’t holler so damned loud.

“You have no idea.” He grunted.

"Good."

She danced her magic across his wet hair and scalp kneading heat and frost into him. He tried to maintain her slow pace but the tenderness of her kisses, the feeling of her cool nipples pressing into his back, the sheer _magic_ of her _magic_ running through his body leaving her kisses on the _inside_ of him became too much. Cullen couldn’t keep a grip on his hips and he began to jerkily thrust into his hand. 

“Call for me,” she cooed in his ear. 

He screamed her name, moaning so loud and long he was sure they heard him in Orlais.

“Are you close, love? Tell me. What do you want?”

“I…” he faltered losing his train of thought in another low cry. She almost came from the sound of him. 

“Tell me,” she hissed a little lower, more demanding, scratching just lightly using her nails against him for the very first time.

The effect was immediate and satisfying.

He damn near bent in half from the bolt of pure fiery lust shooting through him.

“Sweet Maker!”

She scratched again and had to quickly swivel her head before his skull came back so hard he would have broken her nose. 

Cullen never noticed.

Evelyn smirked. The templar never got around to fully voicing his feelings, his words dribbling from him in unintelligible half sobs. The only words she picked out amongst the moans were ‘please,’ ‘more’, and various interpretations of her name.

He twitched in the water, legs locking up. He was close now. She brought her lips up from suckling on his neck and poised her fingers over his scalp again. He quieted, moans lost now in soundless cries, his eyes screwed shut as he pumped himself furiously twisting his wrist and squeezing his head whenever he brought his fist to the apex of his thrust.

“Come for me, darling. Come.” She called and to punctuate her point, she sent the tiniest, tiniest sparks of electricity into him, timing them with every thrust of his hips and pull on his cock.

Cullen exhaled as though he’d taken a punch to the chest. Her name half formed ripped from his throat and his seed erupted from him in several thick, heavy pulses. He stayed locked like that for either a minute or an age, the templar couldn’t tell.

His world was gone, wiped from him, his body and soul floating away on the currents of her mana. 

He whited out completely.

Sanity and function returned to him as he lay boneless in her arms. She rocked him, smoothing his wet hair back from his face, humming against his temples. He heard her murmur with muted sighs just how much she loved him and how wonderful _he_ was. Even his persistent and daily headache had fled him, leaving him feeling fresh, scrubbed completely clean and sinless with love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all the tenderheaded ones out there and the mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and beauticians who hated us.


	3. Relaxers, Flat Irons, and Hot Combs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on tumblr, I'm lonely.
> 
> http://mirabai0821.tumblr.com/

He spent every moment with her he could when their schedules allowed. They slept not some 100 yards away from one another yet days would pass where he managed to snatch only a _handful_ of kisses from her instead of the requisite _all of the kisses_ he needed to stay alive.

But the times when the heavens and their schedules aligned, oh, those were the best.

He basked in the warmth of her like a lizard on a sunny rock, needing her heat and her light just to keep him going. He relished the feel of her pressed so close not even light could slip between them, her nails lightly scratching the back of his neck, buried to the roots of his scalp.

"I think I love you," he whispered into her hair, inhaling deeply.

"Hmm, try that again when you're sure."

He lifted her chin so that their eyes met, gold on whiskey bottle brown. "I'm sure. I love you."

“And I you, always.”

In the mornings, they rose and readied themselves together as if there were nothing else going on in the world. She wasn't the Inquisitor, he wasn't the Commander. The Maker is in His Golden City and all is right with the world.

Every morning, Cullen watched her magically spritz water into her hair, mesmerized as she teased the curl back _into_ it after a long night spent pressing her head into a pillow, the floor, the headboard, the wall, his chest...et cetera, et cetera.

She seemed pleased too, to watch him steal her combs and tease the curls _out_ of his hair.

"Why don't you leave it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Curly."

He paused for too long to tell anything but a rank lie. "It wouldn't do for the commander of your armies to have bed head."

She hummed and wrapped fingers around his wrist. "Let me?"

Good things tended to happen when she had her fingers in his hair so he nodded, acquiescing to her request. She sat on the edge of the bed and gestured for him to sit between her knees. She hummed as she straightened his hair, before long she started to giggle.

"Am I that funny looking?" He fidgeted between her knees, reminding her very much of a certain little girl that would do the same whenever Mama had her trapped in a chair between her shins.

"Just a memory." She sighed happily.

"Share with me? Please." He yearned to know her every thought, especially the good ones. He just wanted to bury himself inside of her (literally, physically, metaphysically) and live forever.

Borderline unhealthy, he knew, but Maker she was just...

"You're lucky this is all it takes for your hair to fall straight."

"Oh?"

"Hot metal combs remember? Or all sorts of smelly potions that burned your head like unholy fire if you scratched it and eventually made your hair fall out."

Cullen shuddered. "Why go through that?"

"To look normal."

"What do you mean?"

"I...eh..its hard to explain."

He stopped her from raking the comb gently through his hair and kissed her fingers. Evelyn relented, unable to withstand his excruciating tenderness.

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

Cullen would have roared with laughter were it not for her vulnerable tone. By the Maker, how could she not know? He turned in her grasp to face her, cupping her cheeks between his large broad hands. The contrast, the light and the dark, his sand and her silt warmed him all over.

"For you, pretty would be so far inadequate as to be blasphemous. To me, you defy...everything."

"Really? Even my hair?"

"Especially so."

Evelyn beamed and shamed the sun. He was perfect.

"Imagine then, if I told you, you'd be in the minority. People don't find me...they expect us to... "

She sighed, averting her eyes from him. Cullen tsk'd and tilted her face back to capture her eyes again. She should never be embarrassed in front of him. Ever.

"I'm not pretty, not to the rest of the world. I'm not fair, or slender, my nose is too wide and my lips are too big and most people liken my hair to the texture of sheep's wool. And since I only really have control of that last part, my mother, my sisters, my grandmothers, generations of us would pull, burn, and fry our hair until it looked like yours. So we could be pretty, acceptable, normal."

He kissed her. "First of all; You're amazing. Second of all; all that for hair?"

"You'd be surprised my love."

"And you believed all that? That you weren't..."

"When it's coming from your own family, when it's been drilled into your head for years. When your fellow apprentices shout at you 'baa baa black sheep have you any wool?' Yes, you believe it."

She tried to hide the crack in her voice, she looked defiant, radiant, these memories hurt her, but they angered her more. He loved that about her, the confident strength and righteous fury she exemplified in all facets of her leadership. A mage in a world where mages where hunted and killed for nothing more than being what the Maker made them. She did not hide her magic but reveled in it and had a heart so big that she could love a man who at one time would have made her Tranquil for talking out of turn.

How could she _not_ be Andraste's Herald?

Cullen consumed her. Surged forward and kissed the very air from her. It didn't matter that it was early daylight and they had a war meeting in minutes. He was determined to not let her leave her chambers until he showed her how _beautiful_ she was in every language he knew.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was short. Sorry.


	4. Curl Pattern

He was looking for his Inquisitor.

No he didn’t have a reason.

He found her, easily. Part of him wanted to believe it was the sound of her laugh mingling with the practiced, retrained chortle of the First Enchanter that led him to her. Part of him wanted to believe that he just had a natural gravitation toward her that would always carry his feet in her direction.

But it was neither.

Truthfully, shamefully, it was his Templar training, his ability to _smell_ magic, _her_ magic pulsing through him like an unintentional phylactery that led him to Vivienne’s solar. It made him sick.

The finding of her…not her.  

The women were giggling. Evelyn knelt in front of the Enchantress hovering a mirror in front of her face while no less than six combs, a brush, and a cloud of pins fluttered in the halo of Evelyn’s hair twisting and teasing it into different styles.

“Now what about this darling?” Vivienne flicked both her wrists sending the cloud of hair implements into a blur.

“Ow, ow, not so sharp!”

“Pain is beauty, my dear.”

The combs and brushes slowed then stopped revealing a new style. Her hair had been pushed back, flattened against her head and secured with an army of pins leaving the rest of her hair in an obscenely large poof reminiscent of the spun sugar treats they used to sell at the fairs in Honnleath when Cullen was a child.

The spun sugar treat he once saved every last coin from his stable mucking job in order to purchase (because they were damned expensive and really only for the merchant kids and not a farmer’s son). The spun sugar treat he devoured once he handed over every last coin, and it was the most wonderful thing in his entire life right up until Evelyn Trevelyan kissed him.

Which became the Most Wonderful Thing until she made love to him.

Which then became the Most Wonderful Thing until he told her he loved her and she said it back.

Which then became…

As Cullen lost himself in a few of his favorite things, he hadn’t realized that the conversation had long since stopped with the two women looking at him with puzzled faces.

They had asked him a question.

Which the Commander had completely ignored in favor of cataloging in order of importance his Most Wonderful Things about Evelyn Trevelyan.

There was no cure for what he had, and Cullen hoped it was fatal.

“Well?” Evelyn giggled, recognizing his thousand mile stare.

“Ah…er…yes?”

“Do you like it?” She preened, gesturing to her new style.

“I like all of them.” He answered almost breathlessly.

Maker’s sodding balls he really hadn’t meant to sound so stupid. Vivienne cackled, while Evelyn averted her eyes, face warming in an invisible blush.

Evelyn shook her head, the pins magically flying away returning her hair to its fully, untamed, coiled glory.

“Thank you Vivienne for your suggestions but I think I like what I have just fine.”

Vivienne smiled and nodded. “My pleasure dear, it’s been so long since I’ve had a proper head of hair to play in. Oh!”

Cullen did not like the look that passed across the Enchantress’s face, a look that infected the Inquisitor in nearly the same breath. The two women turned on him looking like a pair of feral cats, or desire demons, or something decidedly not good for him.

“The Commander has an excellent head of hair, don’t you think Inquisitor?”

Oh no.

“Why yes, yes I do.”

Oh no no no.

Evelyn walked, nope… _stalked_ toward her Commander, lips curling in a mischievous smile that turned his guts to jelly and put the fear of the Maker in him all at once. Yet before he could mumble an excuse and sound a hasty retreat, she had him wrapped in her arms and guided him back to sit in front of Vivienne.

 _Dear Maker_ , he prayed.

_I don’t really mind this because it’s Evelyn, (thank you for her by the way, I don’t know what I did to deserver her but still, thanks.) and I’ll put up with just about anything for her. And I honestly don’t mind it because it feels nice to have a pair of pretty women toying in my hair, it feels really, really good matter-of-fact. But please, please Maker,_

**_Do Not Let Anyone See Me Like This._ **

_Especially Varric._

_Or Dorian._

_Or Iron Bull._

_Or Knight-Captain Rylen._

_Or Ser Barris._

_Or Leliana._

_Actually anyone, don’t let anyone see me like this._

_In Andraste’s name I pray, Amen._

“What do you think of this?” They managed to push some of his hair forward making a little bulwark at the front of his head. “I hear it’s popular in Denerim with King Alistair.”

Evelyn shook her head.

“No, oh! I know.”

Evelyn flicked her wrists and drops of water shook loose from her fingertips. They wet his hair down, all the way down over his eyes before swiping it to the side. Both women giggled hysterically at the result that had him looking like some preteen boy.

“Absolutely not!” Vivienne flicked her wrist restoring Cullen’s hair to its normal coif.

“Wait, I have an idea.”

Evelyn did not use magic to style his hair this time, instead she grabbed comb and brush and worked in his hair lightly, thoughtfully, brushing every strand lovingly. He felt her fingertips in his hair, felt the affection she applied with every swipe of the comb, he could almost hear the ‘I love you,’s in the brush strokes. After a few minutes work and the gentle application of some water, she had styled his hair into something he hadn’t seen on him this side of daylight in what felt like an age.

A full head of slightly spiraled golden curls.

Both women gasped.

“Well now, if only the rest of those Therinfal templars looked like you, Commander.” Vivienne cooed appreciatively.

Evelyn’s death glare melted every last candle in solar.

“Well, that was an enjoyable diversion.” Vivienne snickered. “Come see me anytime you wish to do something different with your hair, love.”

Evelyn snatched up Cullen by his wrists and dragged him away from the Enchantress, not bothering to ask for clarification about to whom exactly that invitation was for.

**

“Wait, I need to.. . a comb.” He could barely eek out a word for her mouth sucking the life out of his lips, the onslaught starting the second she closed the door to her quarters.

“Leave it, just like this.” She panted.

“Wait, just…” he tried to rake his fingers through his hair to lay down the curls but her grip kept his hands on her waist and then up to her…

“Stop!” He bellowed and Evelyn jumped away as though struck.

Frantically, he used his hands to lay his hair flat. It was a sloppy job, leaving half his head in curls, the other half laying straight.

“I…I’m sorry.” She didn’t meet his gaze, staring at her feet, face scrunched up in an expression of pain, shame, sadness… and fear.

She started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said again, voice watering. “I should have…I shouldn’t have. I hurt you. Oh Maker, what have I done? You’re a templar and I’m a mage and I should have known I’d push it too far and…”

She buried her face in her hands and wept lightly, curls shivering with every heaving shake of her sobs.

The floor could open and swallow him whole, he could be hung, drawn, and quartered, he could be sent back to Kinloch Hold and it would still be a kinder fate than to watch Evelyn Trevelyan cry.

A worse fate still, to know he had made her cry.

“Evelyn, no…” He reached for her, swallowed her up in an embrace that threatened to crush her spine. “It wasn’t you, my love. It was never you. Just my…my blighted hair.”

“Why are you so afraid of what you look like? You don’t have to be.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

He always knew that whatever this was, it was too good to be true. The awful truth of his life would finally be revealed and she’d flee from him as anyone, mages especially, rightfully should. But her eyes were red and raw and demanded nothing but the truth, and he was far too much in love with her to tell her anything but.

She deserved to know.

“Because every day I woke at the Gallows, it was this face that greeted me. This face that sentenced mages to Tranquility, that sat by while they were abused and misused, that killed them, put swords through their neck for failed Harrowings and sometimes…not failed Harrowings. I saw that face every day and that face was a monster.”

A few more tears slipped free of the bindings of her lashes, marring her face with their wetness, breaking his broken heart further.

“And now, with you. Loving you. I can’t let you see that monster.”

He released her, fully expecting her to recoil from him or send him from her sight.

He did not expect the kiss—a sweet thing, the barest touch of lip against lip that made his heart bleed.

“Cullen,” her hands were cool upon his face though by no magic at all. “Your hair makes you no more a monster than mine makes me a sheep.” She pointed a sharp finger to his chest, just over his heart. “It’s what’s here that makes you the man or monster you desire to be. And I see you Cullen Rutherford, you haven’t been a monster in a very long time.”

Cullen moaned. He felt as though the Maker himself had come down to forgive him. She had not absolved him though, she didn’t mean to.

Her fingers were in his hair before he could shy away, working the straightened half of his head back into curls. His eyes slipped closed and he let her work.

“There. Beautiful.”

She levitated a hand mirror from her vanity and handed it to him. Cullen flipped it over and willed himself to stare at the reflection.

To his everlasting wonder, and maybe it had something to do with the reflection of the exquisite lady standing behind him,

Cullen didn’t flinch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all the kudos and kind words, I thank you.


	5. Going Natural

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad I waited as long as I did for this. It has accompanied an odd case of art imitating life. Or life imitating art... yeah, that one

It really wasn't his fault.

Poor Bastard, as he was known forever after for his egregious miscalculation, was one of those new agents. The leader of a mercenary company or something--one of those 'I must prove to all and sundry that I don't have the tiniest penis in the keep by belittling others who probably have more balls or ovaries than I do,' types.

Poor Bastard.

"Hey! You there. Boy!" The Bastard stalked up to the Commander, shirtless and swaggering, carrying sword, shield, and attitude. "Think you can scrounge up a worthy opponent for me?"

Cullen frowned, sweat sticking his curls together as he beat back another fresh recruit. "I think I'll prove a worthy enough challenge." He dismissed his opponent who fled from him eagerly and readied himself to face the new man.

"You?" Poor Bastard scoffed. "Look at you. You look fresh from your mama's cunt. Send me a man, not a curly headed boy still wet with her cunny juice."

The entire keep halted, seeming to have heard the insult from as far away as the Undercroft.

Two things: never make a reference to Cullen's mother in anything but glowing adoration.

And _never_ make a reference to Cullen's mother's reproductive organs unless you're a healer.

Cullen roared surging forward with his practice sword, slashing and stabbing at the man who could only pitch back, caught completely unaware by the onslaught.

Poor Bastard regained his footing, adjusted his sword and shield and charged forward, meeting the other man's weapons, striking them together with a dull clang.

"You fight decently _boy_ ," Bastard snarled. "You take your mama's pubes with you when you came outta her?"

Cullen punched him in the mouth, cutting his knuckles on the man's teeth.

Then, all the Fade broke loose. Both men abandoned their weapons and started swinging at each other. This wasn't sparring anymore, this was a blood feud.

The silenced practice yard suddenly and spontaneously erupted into a betting hall with Varric shouting the odds and collecting coin as soon as the fists started to fly in earnest.

They were evenly matched, for the most part, and both were sporting bloodied faces and bruised everywhere elses.

It was only when people started biting that things really got out of hand.

The Inquisitor, fresh from her weekly hair appointment with Vivienne, took a shortcut through the practice yard in hopes of showing off her freshly styled hair to her Commander.

That's when she saw the men, in the mud, wrestling shirtless, snarling and snapping worse than a pair of mabari fighting over a bone.

Guiltily, the Inquisitor allowed the men to fight for a few minutes, enjoying the sight of the bare-chested melee before she froze both their feet to the ground and put on a face of furious anger to cover up a face of only mild, half-aroused annoyance.

"What in the Void is going on here?"

"Forgive me your Worship." Poor Bastard started. "This asshole doesn't know how to take a joke."

Evelyn's blood flash boiled.

She conjured an icicle and shoved it into the man's mouth silencing him. She then released Cullen from his frozen bonds and stared him down.

"What's gotten into you? When did training become an excuse for Ladies Night at the Blooming Rose? "

He looked away from her, embarrassed and enraged. "He insulted me and my mother," He ran several nervous hands through his head attempting to straighten out his curls. "I may have overreacted. Forgive me.”

Evelyn understood at once.

"Cullen, hey..." She tried to get him to stop, grabbing his hand and pulling it down from his hair, but her templar wrenched away from her and stalked off towards his keep.

"Cullen! Wait!"

She chased after him, uncaring that she left the other man rooted to the round with a magic ice gag in his mouth. And since most of the keep saw him and his horrible display no one else was inclined to help him out until much, much.... _much_ later.

Poor Bastard.

**

“Did it bother you, what that man said?” Evelyn asked over dinner that night.

Neither of them had eaten much of their dinner, poking around their plates more than actually putting fork to mouth.

Cullen finally looked at Evelyn in earnest and nodded. “Yes."

Her templar hadn’t smiled all night, his mind no doubt playing over the events on the practice field earlier. She could see him slipping back into the memories of Kinloch and Kirkwall. She could almost hear the screams in his mind as he remembered what that old face with that old hair had done.

No.

This would not do.

Her templar should always be smiling.

“Do you regret this? Your hair?”

The Ferelden goulash cooled in its bowl mostly untouched. Cullen didn’t even pick out the pieces of blood sausage to eat first which was according to him ‘The only correct way to eat such a divine dish.’

She didn’t let him answer. Instead with a magical flick of her wrist, she cleared away the dinner dishes and pulled his chair out from the table.

Cullen flinched but relaxed, a confirmation of where his mind had so wandered.

“What are you doing love?” he asked mildly. He knew her magic would never hurt him, knew it balls to bone. But Evelyn could still be mischievous in the application of her magic, never malicious, but mischievous. And, if he thought about it, that mischief usually always ended up with both of them screaming, sated, and sleepy so he relaxed in his chair and let her work.

Evelyn dimmed all but a handful of candles while stoking the fire in her hearth higher. The room darkened but warmed and Cullen felt a different kind of warmth emanating from the gaze in her eyes suffusing him with a fire that made his blood burn.

She stood before him as he sat in the chair. She grinned her troublemaking grin before going to her knees before him.

“I’m going to make you smile my love.” She answered.

First she started with his boots, lace by infuriating lace she untied and released him from them, giving him instructions that his hands were to never leave the arm rests. Thankfully, he knew better than to show up at dinner in his armor, so she had no grieves or breastplate to contend with.

“I’ve tried everything I know to make you feel good about your hair my love, and nothing seems to work. So let’s try some positive reinforcement.”

He was down to his naked feet. She warmed her hands and began to knead the ball and instep with tingling fingers.

Cullen groaned happily.

“Whenever you think about your curly hair, remember this.” She worked the knots and the discomfort out of both feet before her hands started travelling upwards. Her hands came to rest at the laces on his breeches, he was hard as a stone when she was working on his toes, by now, he was a damned fade-touched diamond.

“Look at me.” Evelyn commanded gently. It shouldn’t take five minutes to undo someone’s pants and Cullen prided himself on being able to release himself in five seconds if he was in a hurry. But Evelyn, damnable, mischievous, glorious Evelyn, took her time with the laces of his pants, ghosting her fingers and palms up and down his straining erection.

“I want you to remember the look on my face and the feeling in your body whenever you think of yourself and who you are. And who you are to me.”

He had to help her work his pants down his body, leaving him now in his smalls (which weren’t doing very much considering his cock was now actively trying to break free of them) and his linen tunic.

“Think of this,” she kissed his ankle, his calves, the underside of his knee. “And how you feel.”

The Commander released a hard breath, suddenly overwhelmed by all the love and care she was pressing into his skin. A smile broke wide across his face at the image of her chastely kissing his instep for no other reason than to make him smile.

“Evelyn, Maker’s breath I love you.”

She noted his smile, marked it down in her long memories of Cullen’s Smiles, and continued her work.

“As I you, no matter which way you are. But damn, do I love your curls.”

Done with kissing, Evelyn stood up and away from the Commander. She worked the clasps and closures on her robes until they fell away, her smalls fell away too and she noted Cullen’s hitched breath.

He never got tired of seeing her nude. Never got tired of the dips and divots , peaks and valleys of her flesh. No matter how many times he ran his hand or tongue along her, he would never grow weary of the image. Especially of it crowned with her beautiful, unmanageable, unruly, lion’s mane of curls.

The muscles in Cullen’s neck gave out and he thunked the back of his head against the chair.

And the moan he made outstripped the sound of bone and wood clacking together.

“Andraste preserve me, you’re….Maker.”

Evelyn soaked up his praise and fed it back to him.

“When you think of your curls, dear heart, think of mine.” She stepped forward again, bringing their bodies close. Evelyn took a wicked hand, grabbed his, and brushed his fingers at the juncture of her thighs. “All of mine.”

She was soaking wet, completely and utterly. And it was…

“All for you.”

He hissed as though burned, torn between pulling away and pushing deeper inside of her. She removed from him his ability to decide and fell to her knees again. His smalls disappeared but he hardly noticed as her mouth was wondrously close to his…

“Ahh! Maker! Evelyn! Yes!” He roared as she took him in her mouth. She sucked him slowly, mouth applying a gentle suction while her tongue cris-crossed his shaft as she bobbed up and down. Slowly, lovingly, she swallowed him whole before releasing him with a wet squelch.

His eyes had gone dark, honey gold transformed into something almost black. His knuckles were white and numb, his face flushed, and his mouth wide open in a moan of her name.

“Remember how you feel, beloved, right now, just like this. Your curls should only be associated with bliss, mine and yours.”

When she swallowed him again, Cullen buried his fingers in her soft, vanilla, shea buttery hair. The sensation of that softness combined with the sensation of her tongue, his eyes rolled back until...

“Ah!”

He felt the light drag of teeth on him, surprising him more than hurting him.

She popped off him again with _that_. _Look_. On her face. “Remember that whenever you feel like you’re a monster. You are not. And you didn’t like that feeling did you?”

The look on his face answered her.

“Oh…well...maybe you did. Shit.”

Plan backfired.

With her plan foiled and her spell broken, Cullen felt no compunction or ability to remain seated. He seized his lover by the arms and threw her unceremoniously over his shoulder and carried her to the bed. He hooked a thigh over the crook of his arm and plunged into her grunting wantonly the entire way.

No more games, no more magic, no more commands but ‘yes’, ‘please’, and ‘more’.

She panted under his thrusts, not minding in the least (at least not right now) that her plan had woefully and wondrously failed. All she could do was cry out and slam her hips back whenever he slammed his forward. They made each other shiver and shake, cry, moan, and yell.

He had her every way he could. On her back, on his back, on hands and knees, standing, seated, and bent in half.

They floated away together on their lust, completely losing all sense of time until Cullen drove forward with a powerful final roar, releasing himself deep within his thrice satisfied lover.

Later when the high wore off, Evelyn turned to address her templar.

“Okay, so that worked but didn’t quite work out like I meant it to. Suffice it to say, the point was: Cullen, I don’t care what you do to your hair. I love you in all the ways you come.”

Both giggled like fucking idiots at that and when the laughing fit subsided Evelyn continued. “You’re beautiful, my templar, I wanted you to see it the way I do.”

Cullen wrapped her hair around his fingers and drew closer, Evelyn’s eyes slipped closed expecting a kiss, but when he gave it, he kissed her hair.

“All that for my hair huh?”

Evelyn fidgeted. “Yes actually. It's silly to some, but just the action of wearing your hair the way you want to, damn the consequences, can actually be a powerful statement. Think of yourself, you were afraid to look in a mirror because of the memory your hair invoked. Don't be afraid of it, embrace it. Love it, as I do. As I love you.”

“Damn the consequences?”

“Damn the consequences.”

**

He got a lot of stares now with his new (well _old_ ) hairstyle. More than he liked. But she had taught him that the trick to overcoming the gawking stares of others is to simply stop giving a fuck.

Damn the consequences.

Besides, he’s the Commander of the armies of the Inquisition. He could wear a dress and dance the fucking remigold and not a soul could dare gainsay him, in fact, he might even attract a few dance partners.

They knew a Warden who’d definitely be game.

To date, other than Poor Bastard, no one else really had the balls to say anything to him or snicker in his wake. Thinking about it hard enough, Cullen realized people were actually _nicer_ to him.

Leliana actually _listened_ to him during their war councils. Well, to be fair, she always listened to him because she respected him, it’s just that now she was far less snarky about it. Same with Josie.

And Dorian.

And Varric.

And Iron Bull.

Not Sera though, she was completely and utterly intractable but she was that way with everybody.

Even the cook, who was a notorious Orlesian snob, made him his favorite Ferelden goulash. Just about every non-dog lord hated him while Cullen ate like a king for a week.

Perks aside, Cullen found being a new adherent to the school of Simply Not Giving a Shit to be extremely liberating, especially concerning his relationship with the Inquisitor. He kissed her as often as he could in as many places as he could find her, because she was made for kissing and he was made to kiss her.

Which was how he found himself kissing the life out of her in the Grand Hall to the appreciative hoots and hollers of passers-by. Something something, good for morale, something something mages and templars coming together.

Oh, if they only knew.

But as with any Good Thing, there’s always that one asshole that tries to ruin it.

A Nevarran noble, fresh off the boat and fancying himself an amateur bard clucked his tongue at the couple before bursting into prose.

"Ahh look, you two are of a kind. Even now, now, very now, an old white ram is tupping that black ewe. Arise, arise! Awake Skyhold with the bell. Or else they will make a sheep's pen of the place!" The noble laughed, apparently having a good time with his jest.

Evelyn jerked away from him, breaking their kiss. Even though she was the Queen of Not Giving a Shit the bard struck a chord, hitting her exact vulnerability for being compared to wool-bearing farm animals.

"You, nappy-head, summon the Inquisitor. I have important business with her.” The noble pointed at the Evelyn woefully unaware she was exactly who he sought.

Evelyn stood there silently, her face stuck somewhere between tears and rage and possibly raging tears.

Cullen, however, was entirely clear on how he felt.

This man made Evelyn cry. And these tears weren’t those of joy which was the only reason Evelyn Trevelyan should ever cry so long as he breathed.

No. This was not going to stand.

Without preamble, his armored fist connected with the bastard's nose, the bone making a satisfyingly loud pop. The Nevarran staggered back, but took the hit well despite bleeding face and broken nose.

"Seems I have upset barnyard," he sneered. "Where is the shepherd for these wayward sheep?"

"You're lookin' at 'em friend." Varric chimed in having witnessed the whole exchange. "That's the Inquisitor, that's her Commander, and you have royally fucked up."

"Beg for my lady’s pardon and I'll let you walk out of here," Cullen growled. "Anything less and you'll be carried out. Most likely in pieces."

The Nevarran apologized profusely and on bended knee, but still had to be carried out. Turns out the rest of Skyhold didn't take to well to having their Inquisitor or their Commander insulted so.

Turning back to Evelyn, Cullen found she still looked to be on the verge of tears.

The Good kind this time.

"No one...no one's ever..." She croaked. She remembered the teasing, the bleating that sounded when she passed by her colleagues in the Circle. She remembered crying because she thought no one would ever find her pretty for being the way she was made. And there he stood, firm in purpose (firm in _fist_ also) making good on his promise to handle anyone who ever said such things personally.

Cullen snatched her up, holding her close to him as she was meant to be. "Are you alright?"

She nodded gulping back a sob.

"Good, because that interrupted my daily allotment of kisses which means we have to start all over again."

And as they stood there, in all their curly, kinky, coily headed glory, kissing the very air from each other all over again, the two--just like that together, never looked more

Natural.

**END**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes that was an Othello reference.  
> Thank you for the kind words. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


End file.
